BT Confirm Final UK ISP Prices and Launch of 330Mbps FTTP on Demand

BTOpenreach, which manages access to BT’s national telecoms network in the United Kingdom, has today confirmed the final pricing and launch date for its premium “ultra-fast” 330Mbps (30Mbps uploads) capable FTTP-on-Demand (FTTPoD) based fibre optic broadband service (this will be available to all FTTC supporting lines).

The expensive new service will officially become available to ISPs across the United Kingdom from 29th April 2013, although this will be as part of an Early Market Deployment (EMD). An early market launch is the last step before official/full commercial availability, although it doesn’t include the same “guaranteed service levels” as BT’s final product.

In terms of pricing, little has changed. A fixed £500 one-off installation fee will apply to all orders, which will be in addition to a distance-based construction charge that will vary depending on how far away your home or business is from BT’s nearest NGA Aggregation Node.

Openreach today estimates that more than half of premises (55%) will incur a distance based charge of between £200 – £1000 and “virtually all other premises” will face a charge of between £1,400 – £3,500. Suffice to say that even the cheapest deal will require deep pockets.

A Spokeswoman for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk

“We can confirm that Openreach will start to make its FTTP on Demand product available on a wholesale basis to communications providers from the end of April.

As indicated previously, Openreach is slashing the monthly rental cost of its FTTP service – upon which FoD is based – from £60 per month to £38 per month, to make it more attractive to industry and their customers.

In addition to a fixed installation fee of £500, a distance based construction charge will also apply, reflecting the costs of building a fibre network direct to a customer’s premise. In line with what we’ve said previously, we estimate that more than half of premises will incur a distance based charge of between £200 and £1000. Premises that are further away from the relevant part of the fibre network will incur a higher charge due the extra engineering work involved.

“It will be up to communications providers to decide whether to pass these charges on to consumers and businesses.”

A small percentage of orders will also incur an Excess Construction Charge (ECC) in addition to the other charges, which could cost up to several thousand pounds (here). It’s important to stress that most of these prices are what ISPs will be expected to pay BT, which doesn’t factor the need for a profit margin or additional services etc. (i.e. the final retail price will usually cost more).